R.I.N.O..... Religious In Name Only....

America’s Religious Masquerade

By  Barney Frank

Decades ago, when young males competed against each other physically rather than virtually, one popular game was Capture the Flag, where two teams scuffled to do exactly what the name implies—get possession of a piece of cloth and wave it triumphantly at the opposition. This week we are in the midst of a contemporary version best described as Capture the Pope, in which liberals and conservatives compete for the right to hoist the papal banner over their policy agendas. The game is at its most intense now, not just because Pope Francis is physically here, but also because his great popularity makes the ability to claim his support a particularly valuable prize.

While much of the coverage of the political implications of Pope Francis’s visit is focused on his relevance to the presidential election, today’s game of Capture the Pope also tells us about the role religion currently plays in our national political debate.

Democrats, particularly liberals, have benefited from those elements of the Pope’s discourse that have policy implications. Francis bolsters arguments for governmental action to combat climate change, diminish economic inequality and place regulatory restraints on the workings of the market. His kindness and statements have also undermined the case for harsh treatment of immigrants. And on one important foreign policy matter—the reestablishment of U.S.-Cuban relations—he is President Barack Obama’s most potent defender against conservative attacks.

But the near-term impact of the Pope’s stance on these questions is limited by the fact that on the whole, American politicians are far less influenced by their religious beliefs than they claim to be. With the partial exception of abortion, and in an increasingly smaller number of instances, sexual orientation and gender identity, elected officials and their activist allies make their policy choices first, and then, when possible, seek after-the-fact sectarian justification for them.

I do not mean to dismiss religious views as irrelevant to the political process. The Pope’s forceful views may not affect many votes this year, but they will affect the public’s views in the years ahead, which will change the direction of this nation’s politics. And I know my own public policy was shaped in part by my religious heritage. Although as a secular Jew, I never once turned to Biblical texts for political inspiration, I was always aware that the teachings of Judaism were an important part of my career. (I did on occasion cite some biblical passages which directly contradicted the policy positions being advocated by self-professed highly-religious conservatives, but that was to expose their hypocrisy, but not because I believed in their inherent validity.)

But today politics drives religious references much more than religion drives politics. To those who object that I am unfairly accusing many of my former colleagues of insincerity, and in extreme cases hypocrisy, I can offer both an empirical and an analytic defense of this modern political reality.

Abortion, the very issue most often cast in religious terms, actually is Exhibit A today of how the role in religion has changed in American politics. Partisan affiliation now outweighs religion as a predictor of an office-seeker’s position. Democratic officials who would outlaw abortion and Republicans who support its continued legality are much more rare than they were in the years following Roe v. Wade. What has changed and brought about this increased partisan alignment on the issue isn’t any change in the underlying religious doctrine, but instead the ideological discipline exerted by sharply increased partisan polarization.

Religious motivation, of course, is still a factor in the abortion debate. There are Republican Members of Congress whose deeply felt, theologically-based objections to it keep the issue high on their party’s agenda. The prevalence of this strong conviction among those who vote in Republican primaries is also clearly reflected in the presidential debates. But it also clear that neither the Republican Congressional leadership nor their strategists focused on electing a president are eager to accommodate this religious command if it interferes with achieving their broader ideological goals.

This dynamic—of theology giving way to electoral practicality—is even more advanced on the question of LGBT rights. The demands of the conservative base still mean that Republicans will do nothing to advance the cause of LGBT equality—and when they’re asked about it, they’ll voice their continued opposition. But increasingly, the objection is only voiced when asked. Gone are the days when Republicans would actively demagogue about the issue. The number of Republican office-seekers who volunteer that God does not want me to be legally equal is rapidly dwindling. That’s not because they are not reinterpreting previously cited Biblical passages. They are recounting votes.

The evidence of the declining influence of religious belief in determining politicians’ position on these two matters is especially compelling because in recent times these two issues have been the exclusive examples of the phenomenon. I can think of no other issues where any case can be made that elected officials from either party base their specific positions on their sectarian affiliations.

This paucity of religious fervor in most political debate leads to the analytic half of my argument. While some candidates and office-holders still maintain that God is their chief policy adviser, the most frequent time that religious influence comes up in most political conversations these days is when candidates are explaining away why they ignore their church’s messages. You can see this phenomenon in this week’s game of Capture the Pope, as conservative Republican Catholics defend their disagreement with Pope Francis on climate change, Cuba and capitalism.

That same challenge of balancing policy choices with contrary guidance from their religious leaders is also a struggle for adherents of less hierarchical denominations.

So what is required of God-fearing public officials? Should they comply with particular, unambiguous, specific rules that have been promulgated by some formal process? What about other strongly expressed views, even by the Pope in an encyclical—are those policies merely options, which individuals are free to embrace or disregard? It’s a perfectly sensible view of the moral responsibility of those elected or appointed to public office, articulated eloquently by John F. Kennedy in his speech to Protestant clergy in Texas in 1960, back when voters feared that the nation’s first Catholic president might take too much direct instruction from Rome. It is also a viewpoint for which Rick Santorum, among others, has criticized Kennedy. And yet Santorum’s view is also a narrow, legalistic statement of the obligation religion imposes on believers—and the idea that religion should drive politics is also a standard applied inconsistently by its backers: William F. Buckley, one of the most influential conservative Catholic advocates of a strong role for religion in public life, also authored the article, “Mater, yes; Magistra, no” in which he defended ignoring the message of a Papal pronouncement he found too liberal.

Putting religion at the periphery of an official’s decision making—as a constraint against some limited number of choices—not at the center of the is, from my experience, the model most appropriate for our democracy. It is also the one most officials actually apply most of the time, their religious rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding. While I deplore the insincerity of that rhetoric, I am glad that they rarely follow through with the reality.